To wonder about the fetishisation of cleaning?

[Skelligsfeathers]

Cleaning and housework used to be just that. A necessary evil which most people did but didn't enjoy.
Now however, it seems to be a hobby almost for some people and the standards expected of people's homes seem to be insanely high.
Endless videos on social media of people pouring multiple chemicals into already pristine sinks. Grown adults getting excited about cleaning cloths and different fragrances of disinfectant.
TV shows where people who are obviously ill with OCD are paraded as being somehow morally superior to others because they spend hours every day cleaning already clean houses....

I just don't get it.
Is it all just another way of making money?
Or is it saying something deeper about our society?

I'm in Italy, and in an area where the majority of women are still "housewives". It is changing, but slowly. Even female graduates will often only work until they get married.
Cleaning is I think, a way for women here to show they have control over "something". Apparently Italians spend more on cleaning products than any other European country per capita and it shows. Homes are kept as show homes.
When I came here and started teaching teenagers, I remember being asked "when do you clean your house" and (by a then 11 year old) "what brand of floor cleaner do you like? I like X"
I know people who strip their beds of the ordinary bedding every morning and stuff it in a wardrobe and put a beautiful cover on. And, extremes, my own SIL has a small cooker rigged up on her balcony for when she fries, so the frying smell doesn't permeate her beautiful house.

I find it very interesting tbh. As I say, I think it's often a way of demonstrating control over at least one aspect.

About ten years ago they started with one of those How Clean Is Your House style shows but it only ran for a season or so because having a less than pristine house is so beyond anyone's concept.

I wish it was a fetish that i fad tbh.

*had. FFS.

Having a clean and tidy house is a priority for me because it really boosts my mental health and I imagine I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Although I enjoy it, I don't spend hours on it - but because I do it everyday it never builds up into a job that takes forever.

I can't relax in a house that's messy so it's part of my daily routine vacuum, make beds, wash up, tidy the sofa cushions/blankets, clean the kitchen and toilet etc.

I know I've been criticised for it on here before though and people have said they don't believe you can do all than in 30 minutes a day but when you do it daily and keep on top of it, I find it really easy - it's also relaxing and therapeutic for me.

She hasn't rounded off the wifely role nicely.

She's worked very hard. To the point where she is the main bread earner and her husband hasn't been to work in nearly 2 years. So wether you agree with her work or not, she's achieved huge success from doing something she loves.

Also, there are plenty of male cleaning influencers.

I don’t think there’s anything new about this.

Taking an enormous pride In your housekeeping was a huge thing in the post war mid 20thC (and likely before.) As technology made it possible to have a very clean home - it become something to aspire to - part of being a good wife and mother and keeping up the the Jones’s. I’m not saying everyone thought like this, but people did. And similarly I have friends (always from working class backgrounds actually) whose mums were quite critical of their housekeeping because of my friends more relaxed attitude.

These days I think people like it because it’s something in life you can control.

Sorry that was in reply to @NurseBernard !

I think it’s a control thing. And people find it comforting when the minutiae of their lives are somehow elevated and admired. It’s the age old longing to be included.

So Mrs Hinch ticks a lot of boxes.

@BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ

I agree- it’s like the hobbisation (not a word, but I’m inventing it) of cleaning for women specifically (always women on these videos and social media channels). My mum was and is a standard, middle class person. Our house was never pristine and our stuff wasn’t showroom perfect, especially when she had small kids. I now feel real pressure to have a sparkling and showroom ready house even when other mums come round with their kids (even my very best friends or, ironically, my own mother who I know doesn’t keep her house like that!) Me and my best friend have talked about this; our houses weren’t like this growing up but we feel some insane pressure to have our houses shining and smelling of zoflora. I know intellectually it’s nonsense, but the pressure is still there. And as I say, it’s just on women. Don’t sit and read a book! Don’t have a hobby! Cleaning is your hobby! Scrub the wainscoting!

If you feel like that you need to get some other friends.. genuinely it sounds like you are hanging out with a bunch of people whose priorities are different from yours. OR you are imagining they care when they don’t, so in which case stop watching the vids.

Because while there are a group of people who are into this, most people really are not.

Also zoflora is chemical and rank.

Goatinthegarden, I agree with your method - DH and I spend about an hour and a half doing a proper clean each week (try and avoid doing it at the weekend) because we, and especially me, like our home clean and tidy. We certainly don't fetishise cleaning, and there's always something I'd rather be doing, but I also agree with fairylights that having an uncluttered, clean and tidy house certainly helps my mental health. I like living in a clean environment that smells fresh (of air, not synthetics), where there's jugs of fresh flowers and uncluttered surfaces.

I disagree that there is no pleasure in cleaning. I don't much enjoy it now that i have two small children and work full time, because it's never anywhere near as clean as I would like. I do look forward to there not been food on the floor after every meal and tidying toys away 2/3 times per day is wearing.

Particularly when I lived alone in my 20s, I really enjoyed living in a home where everything was clean and tidy. If social media cleaning had been a thing then, I'm sure I would have been really into it.

I love cleaning. And I have a busy job, hobbies (running, hiking, cycling, gardening) and a happy life.
If we are forced to say its new to this generation (which I don't agree with) then could it be a response to the chaos of the outside world? We're in control of our homes at least, while war, pestilence and famine goes on beyond the front door?

I think cleaning as a routine (almost like an occupation) and topic of conversation is a class thing worldwide. Women who are wealthier just get on with it and do it because it needs done. Women at home turn it into a very important job. I noticed this at the school gates, the mums who stood in a huddle in the morning and gad to 'rush off to do the housework' were more likely younger mums who didn't work. My DH is from a Mediterranean country and it was exactly the same - women would shout across from the balcony to tell you boast that they have washed 3 baskets of clothes already - it's like some sort of virtue signalling. A woman would be judged as a person based not only on her levels of cleanliness, but how much importance she places upon it. You would never hear MC women talking about it in the same way.

Being "house proud" does equate to loving cleaning though, certainly in my experience.

My grandmother was incredibly house proud as is my mum. Both hated cleaning and regularly complained about it. But also knew it's how they were judged. So strived to have a pristine house to keep others from judging them.

Personally I can't think of anything worse than spending time watching these "influencers" they are selling an ideal.

Cleaning is a chore to me. It's always interesting to me how it's women who are judged on housework - men don't seem to get the same scrutiny.

Boring people with bored minds.

I think the whole idea of control and no hobbies is somewhat patronising.
We are all different, and I can get stuck into a good declutter and spring clean with a passion I don't feel for much else.
It absorbs my thoughts and restores a sense of calm.
In these times of horrible news I want sanctuary and peace and this is what I do to achieve that.

I think the whole idea of control and no hobbies is somewhat patronising.

People generally come out with stuff like that because it makes them feel better about why they don't like cleaning.

I watch YouTube videos about cleaning and decluttering because I enjoy them and I quite admire the discipline of the people making them. Occasionally I take on board some of the suggestions, for example always tidying the kitchen before you go to bed, because it's much nicer to get up to a tidy kitchen than to a pile of dishes. I really wish I could keep on top of cleaning my house like these YouTubers do, but I just don't enjoy it. However I love decluttering and getting rid of stuff really gives me a boost mentally.

@PenguinPup any suggestions? I need some inspiration 😂 I weirdly enjoy watching Gypsy xo, she's a Gypsy and cleaning her mobile home is her life. She gets on her hands and knees every day to do the floor, because a mop doesn't clean properly apparently. She must be a MNetters because she takes her sofa cushion covers off weekly to wash them.

I grew up with a Mum who spent all day, every day cleaning the house. As did all my friends' mums in the same street. They never stopped, whenever I remember my childhood it's seeing my mum standing at the sink, washing, scrubbing.

In the summer holidays some kids were told not to come home until their Mum had finished cleaning. My Grandma was the same, every day going over and over the house, it was always pristine. I wonder if it's a working class thing?

As many will testify it soothes my anxiety and helps me to feel in control.

Cooking bores me, but some people love it. Really, it's just a way to not feel hungry but it's seen as being much more interesting and acceptable to enjoy cookery and you're seen as boring if you like cleaning.

Cleaning has always been priority for many people, it's just been monetised now and put on YouTube/Instagram.

* I just don't get it. *

You don’t get that people are different?
How odd

It's just to sell products. That's what everything is nowadays. Sell sell sell.

I really like a clean house but I don't enjoy cleaning,I do it so I can spend more time on the things I do enjoy.

I find the whole Hinch Army thing really odd.

I find being organised and on top of my housework really helps me to feel relaxed and in control

This isn’t a criticism as I feel the same… but I wonder how many men feel ‘relaxed and in control’ when on top of the house work?

Geamhradh I'm guessing you are in the South? I'm from Lombardy and all my cousins in their 30s and 40s are working mothers, and their houses all still tend to be very clean (I think they spend a lot less time watching tv than I do )